1. Technical Field
This invention relates to games of chance. In a preferred form, it is operated in a wagering environment. It may be played by a single player, but provides a much more exciting experience when played by a group of players. In one embodiment, the game takes the form of an elimination Bingo Tournament, and, while the game can be called and marked in the traditional “Bingo Hall” fashion, it is more favorably played on a gaming machine or a network of gaming machines. The game features a variety of different possible bets, some of which get more valuable as the player gets further in the tournament without being eliminated. The variety of possible bets adds the excitement of different combinations of wins as each part of the game plays out, providing the kind of excitement of a traditional Craps table, for example.
2. Description of Related Art
Traditional Bingo games are played in a Bingo hall and involve players marking off letter-number combinations (e.g. B-14, I-28, etc.) that are randomly drawn and then called out by the operator of the game. Typically, the first player or players that are able to mark a particular pattern of letter-number combinations calls out “Bingo” and wins a prize. There have been various electronic systems devised to help players record the called numbers, such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,151, or to automatically select the numbers and monitor the game, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,683,295. There have been automated tournament systems such as the system of U.S. Pat. No. 6,908,390, which operates a bingo game on a linked group of slot machines.
There have been slot machines that have a bonus game allowing the player to play Bingo, such as those found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,609,973 and 6,840,858. There have been systems that provide players awards for accomplishments in a Bingo game on the way toward completing the desired pattern, such as the system of U.S. Pat. No. 6,805,629. While all of these previous Bingo games provide ways to distinguish the player doing the best at the game, until now there has not been a facility to measure the poorest performance of the Bingo players, nor has there been a need for such a measurement.
There have been gambling tournaments involving slot-machine or video-poker games, played on machines in casinos or on networked computers such as on the Internet. Elimination tournaments are common in Texas Hold 'em Poker, both at live tables or using electronic connections such as the Internet. Elimination Blackjack tournaments were introduced on the CBS TV show called “Ultimate Blackjack Tour”.
There have been multiple-player slot-machine attractions, such as the games disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/296,840 by Slomiany et al. (published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2006/0121971 A1) and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/333,831 (published as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2006/0160624 A1), as well as games like International Gaming Technology (IGT)'s “Super Spin Wheel of Fortune” and WMS Gaming's “Monopoly Big Event.”
In traditional Bingo games, it is possible to win prizes that are many times the entry fee. However, large prize pools are created by adding more players to the game, which has the direct result of less action for each player. Until now, there has not been a way to provide the action that comes with a small number of players while still allowing the winning of sizable awards.